December 7, 2011 11:34 am

It looks like it will only cost you $7,500 to put another player on the shelf for the rest of the season.

According to Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia defensive end Trent Cole said he was fined $7,500 by the league for his intentional slamming of Seattle Seahawks offensive tackle Russell Okung on the turf at the end of the Seahawks 31-14 victory last week. The incident resulted in Okung suffering a torn pectoral muscle and being out for the rest of the season.

For a comparison, Seattle receiver Golden Tate was fined the same amount ($7,5000) for his touchdown celebration against Washington two weeks ago.

According to the report, Cole will not appeal the fine.

“I’m not a dirty player,” he told the Inquirer. “At the time, all the stuff that led up to that, there was a lot of stuff that happened in that game. … Watch that game closely and key on Okung and key on me you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Cole bristled at his actions being compared to Detroit defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, who was suspended for two games after stepping on Green Bay offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith’s arm after the play was over.

“They try to compare me to Suh up there,” Cole said. “You can’t compare me to that. I was in a situation.”

C’mon Cole. You were getting abused all game by Okung and then you tried to pull the man’s arm out of his socket on one of the last plays of the game after the whistle blew. Sounds a lot like Suh to me, and you’re lucky the league didn’t fine you a lot more and suspend you for at least a game. Next time you’d be better served with a no comment.

Blog search

Twitter

About

Gregg Bell joined The News Tribune in July 2014. Bell had been the director of writing for the University of Washington's athletic department for four years. He was the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press from 2005-10, covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season and beyond. He's also been The Sacramento Bee's beat writer on the Oakland Athletics and Raiders. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a 2000 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

Hate to say it but this crap goes on all of the time. Most of the time the player wont be injured, so no harm no foul. I would not doubt Okung was pretty aggressive all day. Nothing wrong with aggressive play.

I would never compare this to what Suh did. What Suh did was crazy stupid. Cole was just stupid. If it happened during the play, at worst it is defensive holding.

Hawks now know the price of physical harm for the next opportunity to play the eagles. Pay backs are sweet.

Certainly, bird_spit, this kind of stuff goes on all the time (guys getting into after the whistle).

But when the conduct involves throwing the other player to the ground, ending his season with the resultant injury, and putting him in line for six months of rehab…any sense of fairness and basic justice demands more punishment than a mosquito bite fine equivalent to 0.25% of your $2.9 million salary.

It didn’t help our cause that the announcers completely missed Cole’s deed. Cole is admitting that he was responding to stuff Okung was doing or saying during the game. Perhaps Okung held him a few times, but that doesn’t justify what he did. I wouldn’t compare it to Suh’s actions, but it certainly qualifies for a hefty fine.

what a pisser. as someone else said, this was after the whistle, and was not a football play. that’s what makes all the difference to me. and yeah, the fact that it ended a guy’s season should be taken into account. bs.

Nice job Eric.
“C’mon Cole. You were getting abused all game by Okung and then you tried to pull the man’s arm out of his socket on one of the last plays of the game after the whistle blew. Sounds a lot like Suh to me, and you’re lucky the league didn’t fine you a lot more and suspend you for at least a game. Next time you’d be better served with a no comment.”

Hey y’all..don’t misconstrue what wrote as any form of letting Cole have a by for his actions. I think what he did was pretty cowardly. He knew that it was after the whistle. I knew the ref would stomp on Okung if he retaliated. This wasnt some mano e mano. I sort of hope the NFL players will take care of this. The NFL union or the NFL HQ, no..the players. These guys on other teams, who were friends of Okung’s can and likely will put a bit more energy into taking out Cole. Next time Okung is able to handle Cole, there should be specific offensive plays for the QB can audible to, so that Okung can have his way with this guy. I would expect the next game with the Trent Cole team, probably the eagles, the eagles probably need to be prepared to have a replacement ready for their boy Cole. If it only costs $7500 to end a season, then I think Okung knows what to do. NFL HQ needs to be ashamed with that fine.

This whole situation just sucks! I lost a lot of respect for the NFL today. I know damn well if it had been us hurting an Eagles player our guy would have gotten fined big time with calls for his head all week on ESPN. So basically Cole doing something completely blatant with no other reasoning other than to hurt the guy because he was p*ssed they were losing and that’s equivalent to Tate’s touchdown celebration? Really? Gimme a break!

As far as I am concerned this is worse then what Suh did. Don’t get me wrong what he was was freakin’ stupid and he deserved his punishment but what did the Pack lineman get? A bruise?

Eric – You should do a feature story (your stories lately, have been great by the way) on Cole being a punk. Maybe the national media would pick up on it a bit (I’m sure Sando would link it) and more attention could be given to what a farce it is to fine Tate the same amount for doing a stupid TD celebration as it is to end someones season. It could be like a snowball…

If this would have happened to Eli, Revis, or anyone who plays football in New Jersey it’d have been headlines all week and BAdCowardell would have been forced to potentially do something more.

Someone better than me that can put the right words down. Should write a E Mail to Goodell, and tell him what we think about the BS deal of Cole.And the bias he shows to the seahawks.( Bobby K,Dukeshire)

I say we hire about 5 goons to the roster and have them hurt the best players on opposing teams each week by the end of the 1st quarter (cheap shot plays that may results in ejections and one 15-yard penaly each). Pretty much the same difference.

Sure, it’d give the other team an advantage and a probable early lead, but without their best players (on their way to the hospital) they may not be any match for the rest of the game.

If Goodell the FOOL were smart enough to realize this, he may not be opening this bag of worms and would have punished Cole appropriately.

When a uniform fine is greater than an intentional act designed to injure someone, there is a problem. This fine is an insult.

And is there any surer sign someone is a dirty player than said player stating, “Im not a dirty player”? It’s like saying, “I’m not a racist, but…”. The next words out of that persons mouth always confirm they are in fact a racist.

We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part and abiding by these simple rules.